Some criticism of NGOs

Development is the strategy of evasion. When you can’t give people land reform, give them hybrid cows. When you can’t send children to school, try non-formal education. When you can’t provide basic health to people, talk of health insurance. Can’t give them jobs? Not to worry, just redefine the words “employment opportunities”. Don’t want to do away with using children as a form of slave labor? Never mind. Talk of “improving the conditions of child labor!” It sounds good. You can even make money out of it.


— Palagunmi Sainath, Everybody Loves a Good Drought; Stories from India’s Poorest Districts, (Penguin Books, 1996), p.421



Everybody talks about role of civil societies especially in the countries where Governments proved to be corrupt and inefficient but whether NGOs are different. Some common criticisms of NGOs are (which are unfortunately true also) –

- NGOs are self-appointed; lacks the transparency and accountability.

- Many of the NGOs are ideologically biased, or religiously-committed and, often, at the service of special interests.

- NGO's have known for openly interfering with elections specially in the undergoing some sort of crisis.

- NGO's tops officials are well-remunerated and enjoy better facilities than their counterparts in corporate sectors

- The financing of NGO's are invariably obscure and their sponsors unknown.

- Many NGO's serve as official contractors for governments.

- NGO's claims to be not for profit - yet, many of them possess sizable equity portfolios and abuse their position to increase the market share of firms they own.



"The Economist" sums up the short-sightedness, inaptitude, ignorance, and self-centeredness of NGO's neatly:

"Suppose that in the remorseless search for profit, multinationals pay sweatshop wages to their workers in developing countries. Regulation forcing them to pay higher wages is demanded... The NGOs, the reformed multinationals and enlightened rich-country governments propose tough rules on third-world factory wages, backed up by trade barriers to keep out imports from countries that do not comply. Shoppers in the West pay more - but willingly, because they know it is in a good cause. The NGOs declare another victory. The companies, having shafted their third-world competition and protected their domestic markets, count their bigger profits (higher wage costs notwithstanding). And the third-world workers displaced from locally owned factories explain to their children why the West's new deal for the victims of capitalism requires them to starve."